Saturday, November 18, 2006

Maskerade: What An Angry Medic Does In His Spare Time

Any medical student will tell you that life in med school is made a heckuva lot more tolerable if you do stuff other than study. Here in Cambridge, however, many students don't believe that, and hence proceed to travel directly from lecture theatre/lab to room/library and back to lecture theatre/lab the next day, having long ago trained their bodies not to require trivialities like food and sleep by simply recycling everything they eat. These students, might I add, are also irritating morons whom I hope will be shot by a disgruntled patient someday. But I digress.

I would like to add that I am most certainly not one of those patients. And the reason I've been updating so infrequently is because I have the honour of being in a play on next week. Terry Pratchett's 'Maskerade', part of the Discworld series of comedy/fantasy novels, is one of the most well-known of his works. Maskerade is a hilarious parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera'.

In both a shameless plug for the play, as well as an excuse for a blog post, I'm providing the blurb for the play, as well as several choice quotes from Terry Pratchett's masterpiece:

Some people think Opera is majestic and that the Opera House is a haven of culture in an otherwise profane and ignorant world. Other think it's just a lot of fat people singing in foreign. But no matter which opinion people have it's usually safe to say that they don't think Opera should generally involve killing people during the rehearsal process. But someone does...

The Opera Ghost is terrorising the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. Seamstresses are being sewn to the wall, the man who works the trapdoor has fallen through it and the Organ has been destroyed (much to the chagrin of the Orangutan who plays it).

Step forward three witches (every theatre has them) Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Perdita. Only one of them can smile, only one of them can think and only one of them can sing. In chords. The hope of the Opera House lies at their feet. But with a homicidal maniac running around they have their work cut out to get the show on. And then there's the problem of the anthropomorphic cat...

Pratchett has been credited with inventing the funniest fantasy series out there. Here are some enticing quotes from Maskerade which provide a glimpse into the man's comedic genius:

"What sort of person," said Salzella patiently, "sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man."

Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows. [footnote: Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed, and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really cause misunderstandings.]

"There have been...accidents.""What kind of accidents?""The kind of accidents you prefer to call...accidents."

The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.

Maskerade is on next week from Tuesday till Saturday. Advance bookings can be made via e-mail. The play will be staged at the Fitzpatrick Theatre in Queens' College. For my readers not in Cambridge, fear not, for a full report shall be posted soon.

Coming up: The Cambridge Round-up, Week 6! Shudder.

"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more."

Laila: Maskerade is on at 7.30pm every night during the run. Now you have to come watch me!

Spirit: Heh. Uhm, I have absolutely no idea, nope. Can't think why they'd have any reason to think so. Nope :) I do a bit of meditation myself. The closest I got to the occult was to buy a book on astral planes, but I chickened out before I could contact my 'spirit guide'.

And why can't I leave a comment on your blog without having to register?

Oh, and this morning I was doing a bit of lucid dreaming during my "it's Sunday morning so I'll just lay in bed drifting in and out of sleep" and wound up merging with a gigantic eye that started shreiking "I AM ALL-POWERFUL! I AM ALL-KNOWLEDGABLE!"

The Angry Medic Elsewhere

About Me

The Angry Medic is an idiot who got into Cambridge University due to his unusually attractive eyelashes. For the past 6 years he has been ranting his way through the freakshow and wide-screen madness that is the medical course at Cambridge and Imperial College London, and finding time to express an opinion on medicine, social issues, and anything else he considers pains in the gluteal region. He can now be found regularly endangering patients' lives (and being endangered in return) somewhere in Southeast Asia.

Have you been overly enthralled by the allure of Cambridge and want to give it a crack? Has someone hit you on the head with a large frying pan and now you want to go to medical school? Do you want to join me in a suicidal leap off the Bridge of Sighs? Or have you a rant more boring than mine? Drop me a line at angrymedic [at] gmail [dot] com

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All persons and events described on this blog are fictional unless explicitly stated otherwise and are intended purely for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or events past or present is purely coincidental.

The contents of this blog are not intended to cause offense to anyone. No university students were harmed in the creation of this blog (well okay, maybe one).